Learning to Fly

Good training at Long Beach yesterday. Light pressure and yes you guessed it chop / swell / powerboat wash. So with 8 - 10 knots and just foiling it was great to be able to work on foiling tacks and gybes. Tried to get some speed work done with the A cats but with the inconsistent breeze it wasn't possible to hang on to them up wind, watching them rapidly disappear over the horizon just didn't help!

So what did I learn (no laughing here!).

Tacks:

• need to steer slowly into turn but rapidly increase rate of turn to get bow through wind and powered up on new tack.
• Body has to move pretty fast at last stages to keep up.
• Dump the extension on new tack, let "Shocky the auto pilot" deal with it whilst you concentrate on trim

Gybe:

• Seemed tougher to find a good medium in the chop but think the name of the game is rate of turn just fast enough to allow you to flack the battens over and get the power back on fast as you're burning off speed quickly just post gybe onto new board

Only other new news in the Moth Sphere is that I've been asked to take on the US Class President for my sins, continuing the great tradition ( well 2) of having a Brit in the firing line for the US class. Nige has done an incredible job for the class, helping us to growth, and guiding us through a World Championship, so I've got some pretty big shoes to fill. I would like to publicly thank him for all he has done, awesome dude, awesome sailor.

I think the key questions we need to face as a Class in the US are:

1. Given the size of the country how do we get to critical mass to encourage new people of all levels and ability to join us?
2. Given the size of the country and the current demographics of our fleet (significant number of pros with other commitments" how do we come up with a racing schedule that is fun competitive and encourages the above?
3. Final, and probably the most controversial for my fellow Brits / Aussies / and Europeans, what infrastructure (regattas, training, sponsorship, shipping etc) do we need to set up to ensure we have the best possible chance of a US World Champion in Belmont 2011, Garda 2012 and US 2013?

(Next we will be tackling world peace)

Answers on a post card please..........